Welcome to ‘Flora Malesiana: Leguminosae – Caesalpinioideae of SE Asia’.

The family of the Leguminosae comprises c. 750 genera and 16,000-19,000 species worldwide. In Malesia, the region consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, The Philippines, and Papua New Guinea, the family is represented by 178 genera and 1033 species. Conventionally the Leguminosae are divided into three subfamilies: Caesalpinioideae , Mimosoideae , Papilionoideae .
The Leguminosae are well-known for their great ecological and economic importance.
Representatives of this family form a substantial part of the rain forest at all structural levels (emergents, trees, lianas, shrubs, herbs). They are also of great ecological importance because of their nitrogen fixation ability (root nodules inhabited by, e.g., Rhizobium bacteria).
Economically the legumes are important in various ways. Leguminosae are an important source of food plants: e.g., soy beans (Glycine), beans (Phaseolus, Vigna), peanuts (Arachis) , peas (Pisum, Cajanus, Cicer). There are also species that provide excellent timber (e.g., Dalbergia , Koompassia ,Pericopsis, Sindora) , dyes (Indigofera), tannins, gums, resins, insecticides (e.g., Derris), medicines (e.g., Abrus, Cassia, Parkia,Tamarindus) , and fibres. Several species are commonly used as green manure, ground cover, fodder, and forage. Furthermore, because of the often showy flowers and pods, they are highly regarded as ornamentals (e.g., Acacia , Calliandra, Delonix ,Erythrina, Samanea, Senna) .

This CD-ROM contains the subfamily Caesalpinioideae and is based on the Flora Malesiana series I, Volume 12, part 2 Caesalpiniaceae (Leguminosae - Caesalpinioideae) by Hou, D., K. Larsen & S.S. Larsen (1996). Where necessary corrections were made. Since 1996 some changes have been made in the taxonomy of the species treated in that volume. The Genus Kingiodendron is now treated as the Genus Prioria as being the oldest name.

We are much endebted to all those who contributed their slides and drawings. Without the help of all those who contributed their slides to this CD-ROM, many species would have remained without illustration. In addition to slides many line-drawings are added: drawings from Hélène Lamourdedieu in the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam, and drawings from Rosemary Wise, who illustrated many publications from Kew. The librarian of the Leiden branch of the Nationaal Herbarium of the Netherlands gave us permission to use the historical book collection for additional colours plates (e.g., Roxburgh, Plantae Coromandel) and line drawings (e.g., Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinense). Under the Sources button in the Navigator one will find references to the authors and artists of the illustrations.

The Introduction is a general chapter to the Caesalpinioideae on distribution, habitat and ecology, taxonomy, fossils, uses, cytology, fruits and seeds, seedlings, on vegatative anatomy (by P. Baas), palynology (by R.W.J.M. van der Ham), and phytochemistry and chemotaxonomy (by R. Hegnauer).

The Species Cards contain all information of the 245 species (including cultivated species) on morphology, distribution, habitat & ecology, uses and (field) notes. Additional tabs give:
*Synomyms (plus full nomenclature references and where possible types to both the accepted names and the synomyms; homotypic names are grouped together and divided by some space from the hetrotypic names; known vernacular names can also be found in this Tab); ,
*Literature (extra references beside nomenclature references),
*Taxonomy (sums up the hierarchical higher taxa) , and
*Multimedia (list of all pictures).
The CD-ROM contains the information present in the book on all species, but additional information is added to the Species Cards of the cultivated species.

The Higher Taxa cards contain information on the taxa above species level: tribes, genera, sections and series, the Lower Taxa Cards give information on taxa below species level. To the Higher Taxa Cards the genera of the closely related subfamily Mimosoideae (Flora Malesiana Vol. 11.1 by I.C. Nielsen) are added.

The Literature database is hyperlinked to the Species Cards. However, under the synonyms tab of the Species Cards additional (nomenclature) references may be found, that are not added to the literature database.

The Glossary contains general botanical terms and terms specific for Mimosoideae, c. 750 terms in total. It is fortunate that we could use the Glossary (mainly the illustrations) from the PROSEA CD-ROM on Vegetables.

The Index gives the index to all species or all taxa on the CD-ROM and their hierarchy. Furthermore the vernacular names are searchable. However, the Species Cards contain more vernacular names than the Index can hold, and it is advisable to search via the Find option if you are looking for a specific native name.

The Text Key is a dichotomous key to all species combination of all species (including cultivated ones), and is a combination of all keys to the genera and species in the Flora Malesiana Volume on Caesalpinioideae, and the keys to the genera of the Mimosoideae (Flora Malesiana Vol. 11.1 by I.C. Nielsen).
The other identification tool, the IdentifyIt, is compiled by the editors, and based on both information in the Flora and herbarium material. We take responsibility for any flaw in these.
The IdentifyIt contains multi-access keys: in these keys you use the characters of your choice (including distribution). There is a general key to all species of the Caesalpinioideae (including cultivated species), to be found in the folder IdentifyIt files and called Caesalpinioid IdentifyIt. And there are separate keys to the species of Bauhinia (Bauhinia IdentifyIt, Caesalpinia (Caesalpinia IdentifyIt), the related genera Cassia, Chamaecrista and Senna (Cassia-Cham-Senna IdentifyIt), Crudia (Crudia IdentifyIt), the related genera Cynometra and Maniltoa (Cynometra-Manilt IdentifyIt) and Sindora (Sindora IdentifyIt) respectively.

The MapIt module is an interactive geographic information system presenting distribution data of the species in an overview map of the Flora Malesiana region and four detailed maps. In the Flora Malesiana the species distribution is given in a general way. Distributions in red on the maps are according to maps found in revisions, the introduced taxa are indicated by pinksquares. Areas in yellow represent the more general distributions as given in Flora Malesiana: bright yellow when no exact location is given and dark yellow if a more precise location is given.